


Ghost

by Medie



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-13
Updated: 2011-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:10:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amazing what a near beheading can do for a guy's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Destina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/gifts).



It's a strange thing being dead. He never really gave the whole thing much thought before it happened. Being young and stupid had paved the way for a lot of cluelessness and that was something he'd never been short on.

At least until his best friend and mentor had damn near chopped his head off. Amazing what a near beheading can do for a guy's perspective. A near beheading and then a decade on his own.

Doesn't sound like much, but in The Game one year counts as an eternity. Ten, then fifteen, and who knows how many more to come.

Each one's a bonus to someone who shouldn't be alive, much less tooling around small-town America.

"You look tired, Richie."

It's a second before his brain makes the connection and recognition stops him cold.

"Joe?"

Sitting in the corner, a cup of still-steaming coffee before him, Joe smiles. The hair is whiter, maybe the face a little more lined, but to Richie he's still the same. "Good to see you kid, been a while."

It's been years. Not since that night in Paris when he'd woken up on a cold floor with no idea how he was still alive.

He's never asked and he won't now. Closing the distance between them, he lets Joe pull him into a tight hug and concentrates on not pushing him away. "Mac—"

"Is fine," Joe says, response muffled by the leather of Richie's jacket. "So are Amanda and Methos."

"Then why—"

Joe sits down again, Richie taking the chair across from him. "Honestly? I have no idea, I just—" he shrugs, smiling. "Had to see you with my own eyes. Sometimes, I'm not sure it even happened."

Richie nods. He gets it, remembers the way Ahriman messed with your head. Hell, most days, he's not even sure the whole thing even actually happened.

Most days, he doesn't want to know.

"And now you've seen me," he says, smiling. "Anything else?"

Joe's smile dims a little. "That bad?"

"No," Richie shrugs, shaking his head. "It's not that it's _bad_ , exactly." And it isn't. He's had a pretty good decade or so, all things considered. There are Immortals out there that aren't exactly Duncan or Connor, but they're good people and they've been good to him. He's made new friends and a new world and, yeah, it's not horrible. "I just wasn't expecting to see you."

He sits down and that gives Joe permission to sit across from him. "I got used to it, Joe. Being on my own. Seeing you again—"

Reminds him that there's a world out there. That his life didn't begin that night in Paris. That there was a Duncan, a Methos, a Connor, Tessa, Amanda...and he misses them all. He misses the memory of them and maybe he hates that more than he cares to admit.

"I like my life these days," he says, a little proud. "it's not exactly Duncan's idea of fun, but it's good. It's mine." And he's worked damn hard to get it. "No head-hunting, nobody hunting mine, I just go to work, come home, occasionally take off to see the sights. I like it."

It's good.

"But seeing me changes that?" Joe asks, but his face suggests he already knows. Already understands.

"I got used to the idea of not seeing you guys again." Richie leans in. "I don't know if I can do it again." He rolls his shoulders beneath his jacket, feeling the familiar weight of his blade. He doesn't notice it so much anymore, long adjusted to the weight. "I'm not sure I want to."

No, he's sure. Especially because this is Joe. There won't be too many more accidental run-ins. He feels sick to think about it, but it's there. A couple decades, maybe three, and there won't be a chance of it anymore. Joe Dawson will be a memory he carries, a ghost carried by a few Immortals and long forgotten by mankind.

It won't be the last time he realizes this, sits in this moment, but that doesn't steal any of the weight of time ticking down. He knows there'll be other mortals, there have been already, and he'll do this again and again.

Fuck it.

Leaning back, he grins at Joe. "In the mood for something stronger than coffee?"

"Depends," Joe says, grinning back, "You bring id?"

"Don't need one in your own place," Richie says. "That's one upside of owning a bar." Getting up, he hands Joe his cane. "The free booze is another. Come on, I'll give you the fifty cent tour and you can tell me what everybody's been up to in the last ten years."


End file.
